


The extent of agony

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Cages, Captivity, Electrocution, Gen, Medical Examination, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pain, Team as Family, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: The room was made up of sterile white walls and floor tiles that reflected Leo’s face back at him and four cages of equal size pressed against the walls. As he looked closer he noticed that each cage had a colour coded clip-board magnetised to the bars and each cell held a curled up figure with green skin and a large tortoiseshell and a coloured bandanna matching the clipboard.





	1. The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> I love torture fics and have always wanted to write one, so I did.

Leo didn’t open his eyes right away but he was immediately aware of cool metal bars pressing into his face. He blinked his eyes open and ever so slowly his vision stopped swimming and around him, the world came into focus. The room was made up of sterile white walls and floor tiles that reflected Leo’s face back at him and four cages of equal size pressed against the walls. As he looked closer he noticed that each cage had a colour coded clip-board magnetised to the bars and each cell held a curled up figure with green skin and a coloured bandanna matching the clipboard.

“ _Pst_ ,” Leo looked up and always shook with the relief when he saw Mikey in the cage opposite him, pressed up against the bars as far as he could go and with worry in his eyes but he didn’t look harmed. “Leo!”

“Mikey, are you alright?” Leo asked and sighed when Mikey nodded. “What’s going on? How did we get here?”

Mike sat cross-legged on the ground and gripped the bars with his hands. Leo wanted to pull apart the bars and make his way over to his baby brother who was obviously terrified out of his mind. “The emergency was a trap. They smoked us and threw us in the back of the truck with bags on our heads and when Raph tried to fight back, they shot him with a dart- it must have been a horse tranquillizer or something because he was out like a light.”

“How are you awake?” Leo glanced to the side where he saw his two brothers curled up on the bottom of their respective cages, both asleep.

“I woke up in the truck,” Mikey explained. “They had the bag over my head so I couldn’t see anything and they had my hands tied. I didn’t want to fight them anyway so I just thought it would be better if I just sat there and listened for a while.” Mikey shivered and looked at Leo with big, pleading eyes. “I heard them talking about us on the way. Something about tests and endurance. And experiments. This isn’t going to be good, is it Leo?”

“I don’t know Mike,” Leo sighed and hated lying to his brothers, to any of them, but at the moment it didn’t seem like there was anything he could do. “But either way, I’m going to try and find us a way out of here.”

There was silence between them for a few moments where nothing was heard but Raph’s snoring and Donnie’s unconscious shifting of his shell against the tiles and then Mikey looked up and met Leo’s eyes. “Hey, you’ve got better eyesight than me. Can you read what’s on the clipboards? I think yours says ‘chief’, whatever that means.”

“It’s another word for ‘leader’,” Leo said gently and scooted forward until he could see through the bars and squinted at the writing on the clipboards. “Donnie’s says ‘mind’. Raph’s says ‘brawn’. Yours says ‘jester’.

Mikey screwed up his face and tried to get a good look at the bars but couldn’t quite tilt his head up high enough to see the clipboard. “Jester? They’re not going to dress me up in funny clothes and a hat with bells on it are they?”

Before Leo could correct Mikey and explain to him that ‘jester’ was just another name for ‘clown’, the large metal door slid open and two men in masks walked in. They walked towards the sleeping turtles cell, took a look at the clipboards hanging on the bars, had a quiet conversation between themselves and left as quickly as they had come. Leo hadn’t even been able to get a word in and he frowned at Mikey’s equally perplexed expression. “Well, looks like they want nothing to do with us for the time being,” Leo said, “I guess we have nothing to do but wait for the others to wake up.”

“Awh man, more waiting?” Mikey moaned and despite Leo knew it was just his brother’s way of diffusing the fear and tension they were both feeling, he smiled regardless. “I’ve been doing nothing _but_ waiting for you guys to wake up!”

* * *

 The first to wake up was Raph and Donnie followed soon after when everyone started shouting his name at once and he snapped his head up with an angry _“what?”_ before he took a good look at their surroundings.

“What do you think they’ve got us here for?” Raph asked once he had calmed down enough to stop hitting the bars and swearing bloody murder and he now sat with his back against the wall and his arms crossed against his chest. “I mean, we’re all in cages and we’ve got clip-boards declaring our personalities. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Leo sighed and looked to Donnie, who was fiddling with the spaces where the bars connected. “What do you think Don? Any ideas?”

“I think that the person who designed this place is a genius.” Donnie nodded towards the door. “There’s no handle which means it can only be opened from outside and there isn’t a lock we can pick. If you say that the door slid upwards when it opened it means that we’ll have to lift it if we have any chance of escape and I’m not sure even Raph could do such a thing.”

“And what about the cuffs?” Leo asked, pointing to his neck. It had taken him a while to realize that there was a large metal collar tied around his neck and cuff’s on his wrists but they were so light that they hardly felt them unless they thought about them.

“I think the cuffs are just ordinary metal bands,” Donnie said, sliding a finger under them. “Maybe to shackle us to something- could be the bars. The collar is something else but it might also hold the same purpose.”

Raph sighed and glared up at the ceiling. “Either way, I think I know who's got us here in the first place.” He met the eyes of all his brothers individually. “Shredder, Stockman or Bishop.”

Closing his eyes, Leo ran a hand over his head. “That doesn’t really narrow it down though,” he pointed out, “it could be all three of them.”

Throughout the conversation, Mikey had been uncharacteristically quiet until he finally spoke up in a voice so soft and timid that it broke his brother's hearts a million times over. “We’re going to get out of here, right guys?”

“Yeah Mikey,” Raph reassured, lowing his voice as well. He would have brought his little brother into a hug if he was close enough, or if the bars would allow it. “We’re going to get out of here and find our way home, safe and sound.”

Satisfied, Mikey sat back against the wall and fiddled with the collar around his neck. Leo sighed and looked to Donnie. “In the meantime, let’s start figuring a way out of here. If you discover something new, let us know and we’ll work together to form a solution.” Donnie nodded in understanding and Leo crossed his legs in a vain attempt to enter meditation.

The turtles were unaware that above them they were being observed by men in white hazmat suits and masks that were taking down notes onto colour-coded writing pads, completely hidden by the double paned glass.


	2. The First Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, this might not make any sense but I enjoyed making it so if you need any explanation just let me know and I'll try my best to help

Eventually, some scientists came in with trays of food and bottles of water, observed them for a few moments and wrote down some more notes on their writing pads. Donnie tried to ask if what they had been given was poisonous or tampered with in some way, Mikey asked when they could go home and Leo demanded to be told who they were and what they were planning to do to them. Raph, of course, screamed bloody murder.

“When I get out of here you jokers are going to wish you ain't ever been born,” he seethed, his hands gripping the bars as though he could physically break them with his anger. As they had already discovered, he couldn’t and there was no point him trying to pretend. Common sense never stopped him though. “I’ll grind your bones to dust with my teeth.”

The scientists- because that’s what Donnie had so aptly named them, as they were dressed in hazmat suits and long white jackets, something he would wear when conducting a hazardous experiment- starred at Raph’s cage in silence for a full moment before turning to a huddle and whisper softly among themselves. Because of the masks over their faces, Leo couldn’t read their lips and he resisted the urge to growl in irritation.

One of the braver scientists was nominated to enter grabbing distance of Raphael and pluck the red clipboard off of the bars. They looked it over for a moment, compared the notes on each of their findings, nodded, added something to the clipboard and put it back on the bars where it stuck to the metal with the strong magnets on the back. Surprisingly, Raph hadn’t managed to lay a hand on the scientist and he looked just as confused as his brothers felt.

They left again without a word.

“Damn!” Leo slammed his hand against the bars once the door slid shut behind them and he bit his lip at the rare burst of Raphael-like anger than he had displayed. “We couldn’t get anything from them.”

“Yeah we did,” Donnie said, taking a gulp from the bottle that had landed near his cage. “We got food and water.”

Raph frowned at him. “Hold on brainiac, you’re not at all afraid that it could be poisoned?”

“You heard me asking about it, didn’t you?” Donnie retorted. “It’s not. I’ve already had some while you guys were trying to wheedle information out of them which even Mikey could tell you wasn’t going to work. It’s plain food and water- they haven’t added anything that could be too harmful if at all because nothing is happening to the food and the water isn’t bubbling.”

Leo held back all the things he wanted to say. He wanted to argue that they could have added non-visible compounds to the water. The food could be designed to be fatal. Hallucinogens could have been added for any number of reasons and he thought his brother silly for not thinking of such things. But he held his concerns tight within himself because he knew his brothers like he knew the blades of his katana, and he knew that was panic and concern and fear that was being carefully hidden behind Don’s calculating exterior. “Alright. If Don says it’s good to go then eat what you can. We don’t know when we’re going to be given any of this again so don’t waste all the water.”

Relieved, Mikey pulled the tray closer to him and greedily began scooping up food with his fingers while Donnie slowly picked apart the items on the tray. Raph sent Leo a look that would have been unreadable if it wasn’t one shared between brothers and Leo nodded confirmation to the unasked question. Raph sat back and watched his younger brothers occupy themselves with the food and drink provided for them as Leo crossed his legs and closed his eyes once again in an attempt to enter meditation.

* * *

 Frantic screaming made Leo break his concentration and he opened his eyes just as the lights in the room turned off. Raph was up on his knees and roaring wordlessly, slamming his hand against the bars as one by one the cages were illuminated by a bright light that darted around each turtle, making their back arch and teeth grit Leo was worried they were going to bite off their tongues as the electricity shocked them with intense pain. Finally, the pain ended and the lights turned on to reveal four scientists holding the coloured clipboards and taking down notes before placing them back where they belonged. None of the turtles had any fight in them from the sudden treatment and when Leo was able to clear the pain from his eyes he saw that both Donnie and Mikey were collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

Raph was slumped against the corner of the cage panting hard with his eyes squeezed shut and when he finally managed to open them again he met Leo’s from across the room, “Well,” he wheezed. “I guess we sorta know what they want us for now.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Leo struggled to control his breathing but he was doing a much better job than Raph was. “What the hell happened?”

“Donnie was right,” Raph brought his finger up to tentatively tap the metal collar around his neck. “These aren’t just for show. When those guys walked in the lights turned off and the show began. It hurt like a bitch but I tried to keep quiet.”

Leo frowned and looked through the bars at his unconscious brothers, asleep in their respective cages. “What happened to them? Did they have a higher voltage or something?”

Shrugging, Raph shook his head. “I’m no scientist like Don but from where I was at, it didn’t look like it.” Raph lowered his eyes to the ground and Leo leaned in closer. “They screamed, though. Maybe it hurt them more than it hurt us?”

“It makes sense.” Leo agreed, but very reluctantly. “The two of us are able to deal with a lot more pain I think, with my training and you just being bigger and stubborner than the rest of us. I don’t know how high the voltage was but if it managed to hurt you and me then I wonder how badly it hurt them?”

“Bad enough to knock them out,” Raph reached as far through the bars as he could to run a hand over Mikey’s head and he stirred once from the touch before Raph pulled back. He glanced to Donnie in the other cell. “Don’s scared of something. I don’t know why he won’t talk to us about what’s happening- he has to know.”

“I mean; would you want to talk about that sort of stuff in front of Mikey?” Leo pointed out and Raph grimaced. “He maybe wouldn’t listen to you, but if Donnie started to tell us everything that could happen while we’re here then no doubt Mikey is going to freak.”

“Alright, yeah, that’s true.” Raph conceded. “But he seems more distant than normal. I mean, he’s always been a bit like that but for the whole time he’s just kept quiet unless we needed him and gone through the motions.”

Leo followed Raph’s gaze to Donnie’s cell. “If what we have already assumed is going to happen is true, then I don’t doubt how much pressure he feels that he is under.” His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of new writing on the purple clipboard. “There’s new writing on the pads. Donnie’s says 1.” He glanced around the room. “Mikey’s is 2. Yours is 4.”

“Yeah, yours says 3.” Raph squinted at the bars and stuck his tongue out of his mouth in concentration. “What the hell does that mean? Why are they giving us numbers for?”

Before Leo could answer, Mikey stirred in his cage and groaned. “Ow,” he muttered as he sat up, his shell making the bars ring loudly. He panted as he blinked the stars out of eyes. “I don’t think that was necessary.”

“Are you ok Mikey?” Leo asked, slightly relieved. But while Mikey was up, Donnie was still asleep in his cage and Leo had begun to get an idea of what the numbers were for.

“Yeah,” Reaching up, Mikey rubbed at his neck where the collar bit into his skin and the electric shock apparently come from. There was a faint, grey char-mark around the skin. “Hurt like a bitch though. I don’t know what they wanted but I hope they got what it was and they never have to come back.”

“Do you remember the order in which you guys went down?” Leo had a sinking suspicion that he was starting to understand what was going on and that those shocks were only the tip of the iceberg. “Between you and Don?”

Eyes narrowed in concentration, Mikey looked up to the roof of the cage and narrowed his eyes as he thought. “Donnie,” he said with surprising confidence. “He went out a little before me. Sorry, Leo, I tried not to but it just hurt a lot and I kind of blacked out before I could stop myself and- sorry,” realizing he was rambling, he cut himself off and dropped his hands down to his lap.

“Don’t worry about it Mikey,” Leo reassured kindly, not wanting his brother to feel bad for something he had no control over. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Humming, Mikey leant his head against the bars and closed his eyes, enjoying the cool metal against his burning scalp. He didn’t see the worried glance Raph shot Leo or the slow way Leo shook his head, but at the moment he couldn’t care less about what they did because they had been captured and they were in cages like lab rats about to have who knows what done to them during their stay.

It burned Leo something fierce to see his brothers hurting- all three of them, no matter how desperately Raph tried to hard or deny it- and he swore a silent vow that he would get them out of that awful place. No matter how thick or shot their shackles may be, Leo would free his brothers from their binds and they would make it home into the loving arms of their father.

“Stay strong, Leo,” Raph murmured, voice low and pitched to carry to only his elder brother and Leo returned the gesture with a short nod. It was unusual to see his stoic brother with so many emotions crossing his face at once, but from past experiences, Raph knew it never meant anything good. “We’ll make them pay, just you wait.”

“Hey guys,” Mikey broke the silence but he still sounded mostly asleep, lost in his own thoughts and his own world of a place away from the one they were currently stuck in. “What do you think the clipboards are for?”

Leo glanced at his brother who was staring upwards at his cell and the wide expanse of chromatic metal that would become their scenery for the next god knows how long. “I’m not sure Mikey,” He said, apologetically. “But what bad can come from clipboards? Donnie uses them all the time and he doesn’t hurt anyone with them.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Mikey murmured and Leo was glad to see the glint of a smirk on his face. “How much cooler would he be if he did, though?”

* * *

Above them, the scientist jotted down notes and compared findings, notes and materials and sharp glinting things were being categorized by colour.

“You have them ordered?”

“Yes, Ma’am. We gave them the same kind of shocks and the purple one had the lowest pain tolerance out of the group. The red one had the highest but we’ve already learned that he’s quite stubborn.”

“Understood. Continue with the procedures but remember, 052, we do not want them killed. They are here for research and experimental purposes- not our play toys.”

“Acknowledged. Which order would you like them tested in, Ma’am?”

“You haven’t already decided?”

“This is your operation, we thought it only fair that you get the honour of choosing who goes first. It’s only befitting a woman of your stature, Ma’am.”

“Oh, very well,” A gloved finger ran over the buckets painted in corresponding colours. “Give them a few more days, first. Continue treating them as you have but remove the shocks from the daily regimens. Make them feel safe and bored and hopeless before we let one of them out.”

“And that one will be…?”

A sharp, cruel smile. “The brawn.”


	3. The Wait

By Donnie’s count- and he  _was_  counting, every second, every minute, every hour- they had been left alone in their room for a few days. The chamber had no windows and no light source except for the bright fluorescence beating down on them from above, and from what he could tell their mealtimes was not always delivered at the same point each day, so all he could do was count. Sometimes out loud, often in his head, and sometimes when he was asked a question he would forget his spot and have to scramble to catch up with the quickly passing moments.

Raph was getting stir crazy and when he wasn’t screaming bloody murder at the cameras he was  _sure_  were positioned around the room, he was shadowboxing in the limited space his cage provided and gripping the bars above his head in an attempt at a pull-up, his body curled into a tight ball to accommodate the cage while still giving him the desired effect. Leo mediated most of the time when he wasn’t talking bullshit or answering questions or pledging promising reassurances. Mikey chatted- he talked and sang and joked around like nothing was wrong and nothing was different but they all knew that mucking around was Mikey’s best defence to fearful and unknown situations.

They were still given food and water (one meal per day, by Donnie’s count, and water whenever they ran out), but they were deposited by metal slits in the wall and slid across the shiny floor towards their cages. Not a single scientist was seen for the whole few days, despite Raph being convinced that they were watching.

“I wish they would give us some entertainment now and again,” Mikey complained, upside down with his feet up against the wall. “I wouldn’t say no to some comic books.”

“And I wouldn’t say no to being told what’s going on,” Leo said. He glanced at Donnie, who still had that worried look on his face, eyes closed and lips moving silently as he mentally counted numbers. “Don says we’ve been here for days and yet I feel they’re toying with us. Why haven’t they done anything yet? No one has come in and we haven’t had any shocks. I don’t understand.”

Raph slammed his palm against the bars and rested his head heavily against it. The loud ringing sound had Donnie opening an eye a little bit but he closed it when he saw that nothing was wrong- or, worse. “They’re baiting us. Trying to make us think that they’ve forgotten about us and that we have a chance of escaping. Making us complacent.”

“Is complacent the same thing as bored? Because if it is, they’re doing it right.” Mikey mumbled, reaching his hands high above his head and wiggled his fingers at the bars above his head. “I’d even settle for a colouring book at this point, you know? And you know that’s not my first choice.”

Leo rolled his eyes at him and turned his eyes to Raph, who was glaring up at the ceiling, hopefully directed at the cameras he was sure were up there. “What do you think? Do you think we can make a break for it before they come back for us?”

Shaking his head, Raph gripped at the bars and gave them an experimental tug. They didn’t budge. “We already know that I can’t break through the bars and I don’t see us getting out any other way unless we can surprise them when they unlock them. And besides, they’re watching us. I know they are. I can feel it.”

“It’s not exactly like you have hair to stand on end,” Leo murmured. Raph was too concentrated on the fantasy- the likely very real one- about the security cameras and the watching eyes, and Mikey was using every trick in his very large book to lighten the situation, so Leo turned his attention to his smartest brother, whose face was still contorted in worry and whose eyes were shut tight as he counted. “What do you think, Donnie?”

For a brief moment once Donnie had opened his eyes, the fear and confusion and panic was clearly visible in them, like a reflection in a still pond, but very quickly he smoothed it over and only a cool indifference remained. Leo knew that look very well. “Well, there’s no way we’re getting out of here even if we do manage to overpower them.” He held up his wrists. “I don’t know what these cuffs do except for electrocuting us, but even then it’ll at least knock two of us out and stop the both of you before you could do any lasting damage. I’ve already checked the cages and unless they’re not all identical, there isn’t any weak points or ways to escape. And as for your concern Raph- they’re probably not using security cameras. Too much risk of us seeing them and catching on, maybe destroying them if we could.”

Raph frowned at him. “Then what the hell would they be using?” His only expertise was from breaking skulls with Casey long after his brothers had retired to their beds and when cameras had to be taken out after close encounters.

Shrugging, Donnie waved his hand around the room absently. “There are many ways. Verbal recordings. Double paned glass with a mirrored surface on one side. Panels in the walls. Spy equipment in the cages. Lots of things.”

“Not exactly helping our chances of escape here, Donnie boy.” Mikey pointed out, more focused on twiddling his thumbs against his chest and balancing his empty tray on his feet.

“Well, if you didn’t want to know then you shouldn’t have asked.” Donnie bit out before he closed his eyes and continued to count. Leo had noticed that while he had been answering his query, he had been tapping his finger on his leg in time with the seconds passing.

Mikey shrugged, nearly toppling over his precariously balanced tray, and closed his eyes. Leo and Raph exchanged a glance between them, wordless and powerful and conveying all the messages they needed without a sound.  _We need to find a way out of here before this place drives us crazy._

From above them the scientists watched impassively and jotted down notes on their coloured clipboards as the turtles talked quietly amongst themselves. “Ma’am, we will need to collect some new data soon to stay on schedule.” 052 informed the woman in charge, who stood at the back of the room with her arms behind her back. “How would you like us to proceed?”

“How many days has it been since the initial shocks and their arrival?”

“5 days since they arrived, 3 since they were last tested, Ma’am.”

“Has there been any talk of escape?”

“Much, mostly from the brawn, but I feel as though after a few days we will be able to put a stop to it.”

Walking forward so she could get a better look through the glass and down to the cages of the turtles, she tapped her finger on the cage she knew her first target to be. “Good. Talk like that must be quelled immediately, should they get any ideas. Let us begin then.”

* * *

  Donnie counted that it was about 14 hours, 40 minutes and 5 seconds into the fifth day that they arrived in cages to the unknown place when the scientists had finally re-entered the room. One scientist walked straight to Donnie’s cage and scribbled something on the clipboard but Donnie paid him no mind. He was more focused on the group of scientists approaching Raph’s cell with more purpose than he would like, and by the way Leo and Mikey were screaming and yelling, it was more than they would like as well.

True to form, Raph was snarling that angry smile of his, all teeth with his lips pulled back thin, and his hands tightened to fists at his side. “Who wants some?” He growled lowly and one of the scientists took a sudden step back before continuing forward. Raph’s cage opened up and Mikey, who had finally turned himself the right way around in his cage for the first time in many hours, shouted encouragements from the other end of the room but before Raph could even bring his fist up, there was the sound of metal-against-metal and his cuff’s had been snapped together like magnets and he toppled over onto his shell.

A heavy, reinforced wheelchair was brought into the room and the group of scientists lifted (with some effort) the struggling Raph onto it and his bonds connected to the armrests. He was wheeled out, kicking and screaming and all but one followed him through the door. The remaining scientist moved to Raph’s now vacant cage and scribbled some new information on his clipboard before leaving. Not a single word that the turtles said evoked any reply from the scientists and the turtles were plunged into silence, alone in the room.

“Leo?” Mikey whimpered hugging his arms to his chest. “What’s going to happen?”

Their leader was looking between the closed door, Raph’s empty cage and Donny looking blindly at the floor. “I don’t know, Mikey. I don’t know.”

But Donnie knew, and Leo was well aware of that fact, yet Don wasn’t saying a word.

Raph was wheeled through the bright, metal corridors still unchangeably affixed to the armrests, too busy thrashing and snarling and snapping his teeth at anyone who got too close to observe his surroundings like he knew he should, but the fluoresces were bright and the metal walls were reflective and he was just so angry.

Eventually, he stopped moving and he was dragged from the chair and his metal cuffs were magnetized to another object until he was spread eagle in the air, unable to move his arms or his legs. One of the scientists returned from a back room wheeling a metal trolley with a big red box filled with glinting objects that shone in the dimmer lights. They were currently putting on gloves and talking quietly amongst themselves and Raph saw a few scientists in a corner with a good view, scribbling notes down on a notepad.

As a scientist in a white gown, blue medical gloves, a clear hairnet and mask approached Raph, the turtle forced the scientist to meet his eyes and his grin was dark and wide enough to split his face in two. “Do your worst, you pea-brained knucklehead.”


	4. They Begin with the Brawn

Panic began to set in the first 45 minutes that Raph was gone, while Mikey curled up so tightly that Leo was sure that soon enough he would look over and Mikey would be nothing but his shell. Donnie was counting under his breath as he watched the door with frantic eyes with his face pressed as far into the bars at it could go and Leo was just waiting because he knew there was nothing he could do. Mikey, voice shaking, was the first to break the tense silence. “Donnie?” He whispered. “Is Raph going to be alright?”

“I don’t know, Mikey,” Donnie said, eyes on the door. He did know, he really did, but Mikey’s eyes were so wide and hopeful that Donnie just couldn’t bring himself to tell him the truth. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“He’s been gone a really long time. I wonder what they want with him.” Mikey sounded on the verge of tears. “Do you think they’ll bring him back?”

“Mikey, I have no idea.” Donnie pursed his lips. “I’m smart. Not a mind reader. I can’t predict future events or re-arrange the timeline. I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

Maybe it was his tone or the way he refused to look at him or maybe Mikey could just sense the general air radiating from his older brother, but he looked down to his lap and stopped asking so many questions. “Oh, right. Sorry, Donny.” His voice was small and quiet.

Leo watched Mikey retreat further into himself and turned his attention to Donnie, who refused to move his gaze away from the door. Normally, Leo would brush off his brothers short and clipped tone with him just being stressed and tired, but there was something… else. “Don, Mikey’s right. You’ve been acting weird since we got here and it’s more than just your typical weird.”

“Leo, drop it.” Don squeezed his eyes shut tight.

“No, I’m not going to ‘drop it’. Something’s wrong and you’re not telling us anything.” Leo continued. “So either you tell us why you’re acting so closed off and strange or you’re going to make this worse for everyone.”

The sudden burst of anger seemed to come from nowhere but deep within Donnie as he whirled on Leo with a snarl and his teeth grit, hands waving about wildly as he talked. “Of course I’m worried, Leo! Because no matter what happens, no matter what they do to us, it’ll be my job to fix you all up and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to!” Leo balked and had to lean away but Donnie continued regardless. “We know they’re going to hurt us, that’s just a given at this point, and they took away my god damn _bag_ so if you come back bleeding and broken it’ll be my job to make sure you guys stay alive and there isn’t any way that I can do it!”

As if all the energy left him, Donnie fell back against his cell, the cage bars rattling at the impact of his shell, and put his head in his hands, panting. Leo and Mikey exchanged glances from across the room- Mikey’s eyes were wet, glinting with tears and fear. “Donnie… I…” Leo began but Donnie held a hand up. Even Mikey was shaking his head at him.

“Don’t Leo,” Donnie sounded so defeated that it burned Leo to his very soul. “Just don’t.”

* * *

  They were all woken up when the lights turned back on and the door slid open to reveal a wheelchair being wheeled into the room with a group of scientists surrounding it. Leo was the first one up and was gripping at the bars long before he could smell the blood and slowly, ever so slowly, Mikey and Donnie joined him at the front of their cages. Raph was still protesting and arguing with his voice full of spite and hatred, but it was weaker than Leo would like.

The lights were still turned off, the room plunged into darkness save for the light streaming in from the open door, but Leo’s eyes adjusted quickly. He was used to navigating and working in dark circumstances. He waited, waited until they dragged Raph into his cell and slammed the door shut, waited until the scientists left the room and plunged the room into silence except for Raph’s ragged breathing, waited until the door slid shut behind them before he finally spoke. “Raph,” he hissed, twisting in his small confinement to get a good look at his brother, but even with how good he usually is in the dark, he could see nothing but his slick-looking shell turned towards him. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Raph grunted back. “I’m fine.”

“Raphie,” Mikey whimpered sounding on the verge of hysterics and his voice was shaking more than it had ever done before. “I can smell blood. Why do I smell blood?”

“I don’t know Mikey,” Raph said, a faint sigh at the end of his words, his voice breathier than normal. “Your nose must be broken. It’s all in your head. I don’t smell anything.”

Mikey seemed to mull that over for a moment before he sat back in his cell. “Are you sure?”

“Mike, I swear to god, if you keep asking me such stupid questions, I’m going to give you a noogie the moment we get out of here.” Raph’s voice didn’t have the bit it would normally carry with such a threat. “Go back to sleep.” As an afterthought, Raph added. “I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.”

There was the scrapping of shell-against-steel as Mikey settled back against his cell, apparently satisfied, and curled up on the cool ground. He was asleep without another word, apparently exhausted.

Leo dragged his attention away from Raph for a moment to glance at Donnie, who was pressed right up against the bars with his fingers gripping the metal so tightly that Leo could see the whites of his knuckles showing through his green skin even in the darkness. His eyes must have adjusted to the room as well because they were wide and staring at Raph. “Oh god,” he murmured to no one in particular. “Oh god, oh no, oh god…”

Now that Leo knew why he had been freaking out, he didn’t know what he could say to help him, so he said nothing.

* * *

It was only when Leo could hear both Donnie’s and Mikey’s soft snores and breathing from their respective cages that he turned to Raph. He still hadn’t moved but by his muffled grunts of pain every time he moved and the rubbing of his shell against the bars, Leo knew he was still awake. “You alright Raph?”

“I’ll live,” Raph grunted, more honest than he was being before. Leo would have been surprised if he didn’t know him so well and didn’t know already to expect it. “I’m not thrilled about when they turn the lights back on. Mikey’s going to freak. I probably look like shit.”

“Glad to hear that nothing’s changed,” Leo joked and Raph rasped out a light laugh back. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Raph said gruffly and he turned over to face Leo, who was still shocked at the amount of blood he could smell and that he could see obviously covering Raph’s skin. He heard the sticky sound of it coming away from the floor as Raph rolled over and waved his hand at Donnie’s cage. “Did you find out what was going on with brainiac over there while I was gone?”

Leo sighed through his nose and ran a hand down his face. “Yeah. He feels responsible for us, go figure. You know how he gets after missions and he has to patch us up. We all know he’s the only one who can really do it so I guess he just feels the pressure more than he should.”

Sighing, Raph tried to sit up and gave up halfway, grunting in frustration and pain as he slid back down to the floor. “I mean; I don’t know what else we expected. He’s the smartest of us all, so it’s sort of obvious now that he would know what was going on here as soon as he woke up. That big brain of his is always working in overdrive.”

Instead of telling Raph about the way their brother exploded while he was gone or the panicked look that Donnie had on his face since the moment they woke up the first day or the fear Mikey hadn’t been able to hide, Leo laughed lightly and tried to keep that hidden. “I guess now I know why he was being so cagey. I wouldn’t want to say any of what he must have been thinking in front of Mikey. I’m not sure he would have taken it well.”

“Well, he’s always been weak-willed,” Raph said but the humour fell short and even Leo could hear how tired he sounded.

“Go to sleep, Raph,” Leo said, urging his exhausted brother to follow their siblings lead. “We’ll deal with… whatever this is when we’ve all had some rest.” Raph didn’t need any more convincing and he was asleep as soon as Leo had given him permission.

* * *

 Mikey was the first awake which coincidently meant that the rest of the turtles were immediately awoken as Mikey was also the first to catch sight of Raph since his return the night before and his piercing scream woke the others up, even the ones as bone tired as Raph. “ _Raph what happened are you ok?_ ” He said it so fast that the words all melded together and it was a little difficult to understand him.

Donnie looked at Raph in the light for the first time since his return and he lowered his head to his hands and rocked back and forth in his cell. Leo was watching him with concern but Raph was speaking to Mikey and he decided that Donnie would be a problem for another day.  “I’m fine, Mikey. My head hurts a little bit, but I’m not gonna die on ‘ya.”

He looked like shit. He was coated in so much blood that he looked more red than green and purple bruises covered his body. Some of his bones were obviously cracked in places and maybe he had some broken ribs judging by the way he was holding himself. “You should have told us this last night,” Leo scolded. He tried to reach his arm through the bars but his arms weren’t long enough and the effect was lost. “We could have come up with a game plan for this morning.”

“You don’t _understand_ ,” Donnie said, voice muffled from his hands and devoid of emotion. “There is no game plan. There is no fixing this. There is no repairing any damage dealt to us while we’re here because I can’t reach you, I don’t have anything that could help us and they took my _god damn bag_!”

There was a momentary pause when everything was still, then one of the metal slits in the wall opened up with a screaming whine and a worn, brown satchel was slid into the room and came to a stop at the base of Donnie’s cage. He looked at it incredulously for a moment before he tentatively reached out, pulled it through the bars and opened it. “Why… it’s not empty. They left everything inside it.” He looked more confused than he ever had in his life and he looked around at his brothers with his mouth wide. “What the hell am I going to do with this now?”

Suddenly, their metal cuffs magnetized to the bars, even Raph’s who grunted in pain, and their cages moved around the room like they were on wheels and suddenly they were clashing together and the bars separating them were dragged up into some invisible space and the brothers were together in one cage. There was a gasping moment of realisation as the reality of their situation set in and Mikey whooped and embraced Leo as if his life depended on it.

Donnie, however, pulled away from the group hug and crawled towards Raph, immediately taking tools out of his bag and efficiently taking care of his wounded brother despite his protests. When he was satisfied, he pulled away from Raph and collapsed on the bars on the opposite side of the cage. “What the hell did they do that for? Why would they give me everything I need to keep us alive and put us together in the same cage?”

“Who cares bro?” Mikey exclaimed, reaching over to Don and pulling him into their little group huddle by his shell. “We’re together again! That’s all that matters! Who cares about why they’ve done it, but now we can keep each other warm and you can stop stressing so much about taking care of us.”

Leo could tell that by the way Donnie pursed his lips and stayed silent, he wasn’t yet convinced but he didn’t argue which was better than the alternative. He let Mikey hold him tightly and even Raph begrudgingly agreed to it, which both Leo and Mikey counted as a win.

* * *

 “Ma’am, I don’t understand. Why would you request that the cages be put together? I thought we were leaving that until the end.” The scientists watched them from a tiny screen in the conference room as the turtles embraced. “Why would you accelerate the process when we still have much more to go?”

She watched the turtles impassively as they laughed. “It would do you well not to question my reasons, 052, but I figured that it would help them cope. We want to know what they are, not break them until there is nothing left. We’re scientists, not savages.”

“Yes, but don’t you think that giving them the purple one’s bag was a… risky move?”

“If he has the means to keep the rest of the turtles alive then let him do it. It saves us having to waste valuable resources and time on them that we don’t have. Besides,” she said as she turned away, voice dripping with acid neutrality, lip curled up in distaste. “He was getting desperate.”


	5. What comes next?

“You know,” Mikey began, leaning against Leo and looking up at the ceiling, blinding white and sterile, his feet pressed up against the bars. “This isn’t so bad if you think about it. They feed us, they give us water, they let us be close to each other every now and again. And it smells a lot better than the sewers!”

From Leo’s opposite side, Raph grunted uncomfortably as his still-raw wounds tugged and pulled at him painfully with every movement. “Oh, of course, you’d be the one to say that Mikey. I don’t know about you, but I’d take a stale pizza and stubborn smells over this any day.”

Noticing Raph’s discomfort, Donnie moved to check him over once again but apparently thought better of it and sat back against his side of the cage. Leo watched him quietly, watched how he clutched his newly retrieved bag to his chest like he was afraid that it would disappear, watched how his eyes would dart around at any sudden noise, watched how he glanced over his brothers every chance he got to make sure nothing new had happened to them.

“Well,” Leo said. All his brothers turned slightly took look at him, as if he was their calm in the storm. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’re going to get out of here soon, and when we do, it’s back to mouldy pizza and bad smells.”

Raph laughed.  “I’m not complaining.” And surprisingly neither did Mikey.

There was quiet between them for a while where Donnie rearranged and categorised all the equipment in his bag and Leo watching with an eagle eye. Sometimes, Mikey would make a joke that was often not well-received, but at least he tried. Raph just closed his eyes, holding himself together and trying to breathe through the pain.

“We can’t see the clipboards now,” Mikey pointed out and yes- now that their cages were all pushed together to make one large enclosure, nobody could read the clipboards, which meant they couldn’t know about any new information that was added. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“You know, I’m trying not to think about it,” Donnie said, not looking up, and Leo could have smiled, but didn’t.

Sighing through his nose, Raph squinted one eye open to glare half-heartily at the door. “I wonder when they’re going to come and pester us. Have they asked anyone questions yet? That’s usually what they’re supposed to do in these sorts of scenarios.”

Leo snorted, wondering the same thing himself. “What shows have you been watching?”

“None that you need to worry about.” Raph shot back, but there was an unexpected lack of heat behind his words.

Mikey grumbled and flipped himself around. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

Almost on cue, the slits opened up again and their daily meals were rocketed into the room, the metal tray skidding obnoxiously on the polished floor, and came to rest against the bars of their cages. Mikey eagerly grabbed for it, Leo helped Raph reach his before snatching up his own, and Donnie, looking too tired to move, lazily collected it from outside and held it in his lap for a moment before he started to pull it into pieces and chew. Raph too was looking at him in worry now, and Leo wondered what Raph had noticed.

“A little cold,” Mikey said as he began his daily review of their meals. It was mostly to keep himself entertained, but also because it annoyed his brothers. It was mostly the same thing every day. “And a bit chewy, but all in all, much better than the mouldy enchilada I ate the day before we got here.”

“Please, for the love of God, _please_ stop comparing all the food to that damn enchilada,” Donnie complained, but it sounded more like a joke than an actual grievance. “It was so gross I couldn’t even watch you eat it. Compare it to something nice, or mediocre at least. Not _disgusting.”_

Mikey scowled. “My food taste is not ‘disgusting’. You eat the same things I do.”

Snorting, Donnie continued to pull apart his meal, sometimes even putting some into his mouth. “That’s not true, and you know it. I would never stoop low enough to put something in my mouth that was growing fur. It had its own ecosystem for god’s sake!”

While Donnie and Mikey were preoccupied with shouting at each other from opposite sides of their shared cage, Leo pushed away from where Mikey was using his shell as a footrest and leant closer to Raph. “How are you feeling?”

Raph, despite being the hot-headed tough guy who felt no pain and faced no fear, knew that he could be honest with Leo when it was most needed. Like now. “Not the best,” he admitted. “Kinda like I got hit with a train, then Casey went all out on me with his gear. I’ve been better.”

“Yeah, you don’t look so hot,” Leo agreed. “And I know you’re trying to put up your tough guy act, but sooner or later, Mike and Don are going to figure out that you’re in more pain than you’re telling us.”

“I know,” Raph grunted in pain as he shifted and Leo raised a hand against his plastron to keep him steady. “but until then, I think I’ll milk it for as long as I can, thank you very much.”

Leo shrugged. “Suit yourself. But when Donnie finally figures out that you’re in more pain than you’re telling him, how pissed off do you think he’s going to get?”

Humming, Raph shot a quick look over at his brother, who was still shouting at Mikey, and then pretended like he hadn’t. “By the way, what’s up with him? Have you noticed how uptight and bitter he is? He’s not normally so… worried. This is a whole new version of Donnie that I’m not used to, and I don’t think I like him all that much.”

“He’s worried about us,” Leo said.  “In his mind, and maybe it’s true, he thinks that it’s his job to keep us alive through touch situations, to provide information, to come up with escape plans, that sort of thing. I think he’s just as scared as the rest of us and thinks that more weight rests on his shoulders because he’s watching us get hurt and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

“You think so?” Raph asked.

“Yeah,” Leo thought back to their conversation the night before. “Yeah, I do.”

Raph shifted again, and this time Leo had his hand swatted away. “If he doesn’t stop worrying so much, he’s going to get an ulcer.”

“I don’t think we can get ulcers, Raph.”

“What the hell do I know? Casey gets them all the time. You know what- hey Donnie?” Raph called and Donnie stopped his conversation to look at him. Leo wanted to slap Raph in the head. “Can we get ulcers?”

“Uh,” Donnie said. “No…? At least, I doubt it?”

Unsatisfied, Raph settled back against the bars of the cage, his shell making a loud sound in the emptiness of the room. “Huh, well, whatever the turtle equivalent of an ulcer is.”

Mikey screwed up his face as he looked between them, and Leo tried not to meet his gaze in case his eyes gave some of his fear and trepidation away. “What are you guys talking about?”

Seemingly to understand Leo’s discomfort, Raph straightened despite the pain and met Mikey’s eyes. “I dunno, but whatever it was, it was way more interesting than talking about mouldy food that was old when it was made. You wouldn’t catch me _dead_ eating any of that crap.”

“Dude, you make things that taste worse than some of the things you find in the pipes!”

When the discussion was well away from Leo and Raph again, they relaxed against the bars and each other, and Raph spoke softly. “We don’t have a hope in hell of getting out of here any time soon, do we?”

“I doubt it,” Leo replied solemnly, and he felt something give against his side as if Raph had completely deflated. “We can’t let them know. I don’t want to freak them out.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

* * *

 

“Ma’am, I must implore you that if we are to stay on schedule, we must choose the next subject and begin the tests as soon as possible.”

“So you keep telling me. These creatures are just so… fascinating, are they not? It’s a shame not to observe them when they think they are alone. All people, even mutated reptiles, are different with family than they are towards strangers.”

“Your work truly is a wonder to watch. Taking the brawn first was such a risky move. Why did you decide on him?”

“To show the others that fighting, resisting, persisting, was futile. And to break him, so any chances he has of escaping or fighting back would be… diminished, so to speak.”

“Understood. May I ask… when you are ready, I appreciate you are not to be rushed but…  which creature have you decided to go next?”

“The brains.”

“Why him?”

“Because his pain will be felt by them all.”

**Author's Note:**

> there will be updates but don't expect them to be quick and don't expect this to be any good, either.


End file.
